US2919617A - Reeds for woodwing instruments - Google Patents

Description

Jan. 5, 1960 A. R. BRILHART 2,919,617

REEDS FOR WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS- Filed June 30, 1955 INVENTOR Arnold R. Brilhort characteristics of reeds cut from high quality cane.

United States Patent REEDS FOR WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS Arnold R. Brilhart, Carlsbad, Calif.

Application June 30, 1955, Serial No. 519,213

8 Claims. (Cl. 84-383) This invention relates to reeds for woodwind musical instruments and to a method for fabricating such reeds.

For many years past reeds for woodwind musical instruments have been made by cutting them out of natural wood materials such as cane, one of the more desirable varieties for this purpose being known as Arundo Donax.

The naturally occurring variations in density, rigidity and porosity of cane make it extremely difiicult to cut a reed having predictable tone quality and playability. It is even more difiicult to produce a batch of reeds of uniform quality. The inevitable result is that the instrumentalist must purchase or cut for himself a large number of reeds and select from these perhaps one or two having suitable stiffness and tone quality. Very often a reed of basically good cane must be trimmed and thinned before it is suitable. Moreover, the characteristics of an initially excellent reed will change as the reed ages and absorbs moisture during use.

In recent years, some attempts have been made to manufacture reeds of uniform quality by molding them from synthetic resins. Reeds of this kind have not proven satisfactory for the reason that the mechanical properties of the resins used are uniform in all directions and do not approximate in any way the very desirable characteristics of natural materials having a directional grain. It is this latter property which makes cane and similar naturally occurring substances generally most desirable for reeds.

I have invented a method for fabricating wind instrument reeds by which I produce reeds having the desirable y new method permits, through the use of synthetic materials having controllable properties, the production of any number of reeds having the same uniform texture, rigidity and porosity. Reeds produced according to my new method have tone quality comparable to those manufactured from the highest grades of natural cane, yet they are easy and economical to manufacture in a wide range of stiffnesses or hardnesses to suit the requirements of every instrumentalist.

According to my new method I form a reed body by disposing a plurality of natural or synthetic textile fibers generally lengthwise with respect to the body to be formed and then impregnating and binding the fibers into a unitary Whole with a plastic compound, advantageously a synthetic resin compound. The reed may be finished to final form by carrying out the above steps in a mold cavity having a shape and size appropriate to the instrument on which the reed is to be used. In the alternative, a reed blank may be formed by the steps outlined above and then be machined by conventional reed making processes to the final desired shape.

Either of these methods will produce a reed having mechanical properties generally similar to a natural substance such as cane which has a directional grain. The rigidity of such a reed can be controlled by the density of the threads and the mechanical characteristics of the plastic used to bind them together. Another advantage blanks.

Patented Jan. 5, 1960 of a reed made according to my method is that it has negligible porosity and will not become progressively less rigid, or softer, as it absorbs moisture during use. On the contrary, my new reed will retain its initial characteristics for an extended period of time and will not deteriorate with age and use.

In the following specification I give a detailed description of several variations of the basic method of my invention and I describe the structure of reeds produced thereby. In the course of the specification reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a reed for a single reed woodwind instrument;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of assembled laminations of fabric illustrating a step in the fabrication of the reed of Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken along line 22 of the assembled laminations of Fig. 2.

In the following examples where a mold is referred to, it is to be understood that the mold is a conventional one for molding and setting plastic resins under heat and pressure and that it has a cavity, the shape and dimensions of which are adapted to produce a reed of the. size and shape appropriate to the particular type of musical instrument on which the reed is to be used. Thus, cavities for fabricating reeds for single reed instruments'such as clarinets and saxophones will generally be of the same shape and will vary only in size. The cavities of molds for fabricating reeds for double reed instruments such as oboes and bassoons will of necessity be somewhat more complex and it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the techniques described in some of the examples below will be more suitable than others for fabricating reeds for double reed instruments.

Example I A saxophone reed body was fabricated by die cutting five blanks from a piece of fabric formed of glass fiber threads. The fabric was approximately 0.004 inch thick and comprised primarily of warp threads with only enough weft threads to hold the warp threads together. It was impregnated with a binding agent comprising a conventional thermosetting combination of phenolic and polyamide resins.

Referring to Figs. 2 and 3 the blanks 1a, b, c, d, e were cut with the warp threads 2 running lengthwise of the Blank 1a was the shortest and blanks lb-e were cut progressively longer.

The blanks were piled into the cavity of a mold having the approximate shape and size of the reed to be formed with the longest blank 1e on the bottom as shown in Fig. 3. Each successively shorter blank was laid on top of the underlying blank with its square cut end even with the corresponding end of the underlying reed. The mold was then closed and heat and pressure were applied. The phenolic and polyamide resin mixture used set up and cured in about 40 minutes at a temperature in the range 240 to 325 F.

After the resin had set and cured, the reed body was removed from the mold and machine finished to desired dimensions on a conventional reed making machine. The tapering portion of the laminated body to the right in Figs. 2 and 3 was cut to form the tongue 3 of the finished reed of Fig. 1 while the thick portion of the laminated body formed the butt 4 of the reed.

Example 11 A saxophone reed was fabricated from five layers of glass fabric impregnated with a combination of phenolic and polyamide resin. Each layer, la-e, of cloth was die cut to the precise size, the lowermost layer as seen in Figs. 2 and 3 being longest and each succeeding upper layer being somewhat shorter. These layers were placed in a mold having a cavity shaped and dimensioned to the precise shape and size of the saxophone reed. The mold was closed and heat and pressure were applied to set the resin and to bond the live layers into a unitary laminated body. The curing cycle for the particular resin used was approximately 40 minutes at a temperature of 240 to 325 F. The reed thus formed was of the exact shape and size required and no further trimming or machining was required.

Example III A saxophone reed was formed by superimposing, in a mold cavity having the exact shape and dimensions of the reed desired, five layers of an unwoven glass fabric of which all the glass fibers were substantially unidirectional, there being no transverse fibers. The fibers were loosely held together by a bonding agent. Each blank of fabric was die cut to the exact shape required and was progressively shorter than the next underlying layer to provide a tapering portion for the tongue of the reed.

The glass fiber fabric was impregnated with a polyester resin prior to placing the laminations in the mold cavity. Heat and pressure were applied to the laminations in the mold for a time long enough to set the plastic and form the laminations into a unitary body. The reed produced in this manner required no further processing or machining prior to its use.

Example I V A saxophone reed was formed utilizing a mold adapted for injection molding. The cavity of the mold was shaped and dimensioned to the exact size required for the reed to be made. A number of blanks were die cut from a glass fiber cloth having only enough weft threads to hold the warp threads in position. The blanks were cut so that the warp threads extended longitudinally and were placed in the mold cavity with the warp threads disposed longitudinally thereof. The mold was closed and polystyrene was injected into the mold cavity at a temperature of 425 F. and under a pressure of 20,000 pounds per square inch. The molding cycle was of approximately 30 seconds duration. The reed formed by this process was of the exact size and shape required. No further machining was necessary.

The examples given above are only illustrative of my invention and are not to be considered exhaustive of the combination of fabrics and bonding agents. By suitable combinations of other fabrics such as Dacron, nylon, linen and other synthetic or natural fibers and other synthetic resin bonding agents, reeds for woodwind musical instruments may be produced which have awide range of stiffnesses or hardnesses. By varying the proportion of weft threads to warp threads, the transverse stiffness of the reed relative to its longitudinal stiffness may also be controlled.

The particular order of the steps of the method is not critical. For example, the reeds of Examples 1 and Ill could have been made by placing the resin in the mold cavity after the fabric was cut and piled in the cavity. Furthermore, the reeds could be formed of a plurality of individual threads cut to appropriate lengths rather than from blanks cut from fabric. The individual threads could be pro-impregnated with resin or the resin could be added to the threads after they were placed in the mold cavity.

An outstanding feature of my invention is that the particular combination of characteristics of a reed may .be reproduced over and over because all the factors which determine the characteristics, such as the nature of the fiber and of the bonding agent, their relative proportions, and the manner in which the bonding agent is set, may be controlled within very narrow limits.

It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that I have made a very substantial contribution to the long standing problem of manufacturing musical instrument reeds of uniform quality and tone characteristics. I have set forth several particular embodiments to illustrate my invention. However, the details of these embodiments are not to be construed as limitations. The scope of the invention is defined in the subjoined claims.

I claim:

1. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plurality of superposed layers of fabric consisting of threads of textile fibers, the warp threads being disposed lengthwise of the reed and being more closely spaced than the weft threads, and a matrix of plastic material in which said layers of fabric are unitarily combined.

2. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plurality of superposed, unitarily combined, plastic impregnated layers of fabric consisting of threads of textile fibers, said layers of fabric having the warp threads thereof more closely spaced than the weft threads.

3. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plurality of superposed layers of fabric consisting of threads of glass fibers, and a matrix of cured phenolic and polyamide resins in which said layers of fabrics are unitarily combined.

4. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plurality of superposed, unitarily combined, layers of phenolic and polyamide resin impregnated fabric, said fabrics consisting of warp and weft threads of glass fibers, and having the warp threads disposed substantially lengthwise of the reed.

5. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plurality of superposed layers of fabric consisting of threads of glass fibers, the warp threads being disposed lengthwise of the reed and being more closely spaced than the weft threads, and a matrix of cured polystyrene resin in which said layers of fabrics are unitarily combined.

6. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plastic matrix of appropriate form, said matrix having embedded therein throughout substantially its entire vibratory-length preformed textile fibers, at least the majority of said fibers extending lengthwise of said matrix.

7. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument as set forth in claim 6 in which the plastic matrix is a polyester resin, and the textile fibers are glass and are substantially parallel.

8. A reed for a musical woodwind instrument comprising a plastic matrix of appropriate form, said matrix having embedded therein throughout substantially its entire vibratory length a plurality of superposed layers of fabric consisting of threads of textile fibers.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,779,522 Widmayer Oct. 28, 1930 2,485,827 Hartzell Oct. 25, 1949 FOREIGN PATEllTS 786,695 France June 17, 1935

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